Meat maturation and dry aging
Maturation: the "behind the scenes" of quality
We have always been farmers and, since we decided to directly deal with the direct online sale of our cattle's meat, we have had the privilege of being able to access "behind the scenes" of the artisan butcher's counter. Here too, as in our breeding, we had to make important choices: short or long maturation, dry or wet?
Today we take you with us to Eugenio, a butcher for over forty years. It is to him that we entrust the preparation of our half-carcasses, the cutting of the quarters and the preparation of the best cuts of meat for our online butcher's shop. His laboratory is located in the countryside of Morengo, a small village that is only 10 km from our company. It is here that, for our meat, we decided to opt for a long classic dry maturation, also respecting Mother Nature's slow and patient times.
Having always been far from the logic (and haste!) of large-scale distribution, we at Carne Genuina have decisively discarded the hasty Wet Aging which allows the beef quarters to mature under vacuum in a very short time and without losing weight, to finish in a few days in supermarkets and on our plates. We have decided to rely on Eugenio for the traditional Dry Age maturation of our half-carcasses, an ancient art dating back to the 17th century. Only meat from the best cattle raised with lots of grass and hay and without antibiotics like ours offers the possibility of opting for long maturation. Nutrition, breed, environment, slaughter and maturation are the five factors that influence the result and our constant controls allow us to obtain excellent products.
Maturation: let's get to know it better
Maturation is an indispensable phase in the meat maturation process which takes place in the cool dim light of the butcher's cold room and which precedes the preparation of the actual products. The purpose of maturing is to soften the meat and intensify the flavour; if done properly by expert butchers, the longer it is, the softer and tastier the meat will be.
For the meat from our cattle, born and raised on our family farm exclusively with hay and cereals, we have chosen a minimum maturation period of 21 days. All our 100% Italian meat , available in the best single cuts and in Bovì Boxes in economy packs, has been matured as per tradition and we are proud of this choice which guarantees the enhancement of the organoleptic qualities of our products.
Over the course of these years we have successfully experimented with long maturation and very long maturation, with the Dry Aging technique, i.e. a dry maturation of the meat, in cutting-edge cold rooms with controlled temperatures and humidity and UV rays to guarantee that the dry maturation occurs in complete safety. For this type of very long Dry Age maturation we choose the best loins from Northern European pasture cattle: Ayrshire, Prussian Manzette or Red Crow because, to offer an excellent product it is necessary to evaluate and verify the origin of the animal, the nutrition and breeding style.
The best Dry Aged steaks such as: the Sashi Gold Dry Aged Ribeye , the Fiorentina Sashi Gold Dry Aged and the Sashi Dry Aged Fillet come only from the best cattle, raised according to nature, like ours. We managed to obtain prodigious products: 40-day maturation and even 100-day maturation: Florentine steaks and ribs with very long maturation which guarantee an explosive concentration of flavour. Our secret? Excellent cattle, respect for traditions and ancient artisan knowledge: these are the factors for obtaining fantastic Dry Aged meat.
